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Pakistan's President Arif Alvi, center, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, second right, Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, left, and other parliamentarians attend a rally in Islamabad. (AP/File) An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Tuesday acquitted President Arif Alvi and senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, including Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in the 2014 Parliament House attack case.
Other leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party who were acquitted on Tuesday include – Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Labour and Culture Minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, Senator Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry and estranged members Jahangir Tareen and Aleem Khan, the Dawn News reported.
The verdict was announced by Judge Mohammad Ali Warraich on President Alvi’s application, as well as acquittal petitions filed by the PTI leaders.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, also head of the PTI, was acquitted in the case in October 2020.
The president and several others were booked in the PTV and parliament attack case in 2014 during PTI’s sit-in against the then PML-N government. Earlier, President Alvi had refused to avail immunity in the case and opted to appear before an ATC.
The president had filed an appeal stating that he would not be availing his immunity and said that Islam does not allow pardons.
“I have tried to read Islamic history. There is no space for a pardon; I am bound by the Constitution of Pakistan. The Holy Quran is a bigger law than the Constitution,” Alvi had said.
On August 31, 2014, hundreds of men and protesters from the PTI and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) camps had allegedly ransacked the office of the PTV and Parliament House premises and brutally beaten up a senior police official.
During the sit-ins in 2014 in the federal capital, Prime Minister Khan, PAT chief Tahirul Qadri and several others were booked over their alleged involvement in the attack.
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